


Thoughts that bind me here

by towardsmorning



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableism, Canon Character of Color, Gen, Minor Character Death, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 02:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towardsmorning/pseuds/towardsmorning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lin knows that she's a Beifong, but for a long time that means only that she is her mother's daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thoughts that bind me here

**Author's Note:**

> Man, categorizing this was hard. Is it ATLA because of Toph? Is it LOK because of Lin? In the end I wasn't sure, so: both it is.
> 
> Anyway, I have a lot of ~feelings~ on Toph's relationship to her family, all the moreso because the show didn't really have room to expand on it much. I also have ~feelings~ on Lin and Toph. Thus, this was born.

Lin knows that she's a Beifong, but for a long time that means only that she is her mother's daughter. Toph is her mother, Toph is a Beifong, and Toph is the only blood family that she knows. The name is famous- infamous- but the only thing that comes up when it does seems to be her mother's exploits in the war and after. On some level she supposes that her mother must have come from _somewhere_ , that there must have been parents or caretakers or whatever before she ran off with Aang, but when's she's a kid it never really occurs to her to ask who they were or where they are.

Then one day Lin comes home from playing with (teasing) Tenzin to find her sat silently in the middle of their living room floor. When Lin enters her mother starts suddenly and Lin can see a look of shock playing out across her face- it looks unreal and misplaced, strange and unfamiliar. Lin's mother never looks like that, and she never doesn't notice that Lin's nearby until they're in the same room. Lin immediately feels her nerves ratchet up in response.

"What's happened?" she says before her mother can even open her mouth, wincing at the audible wobble in her voice. Normally that would get her a round of good-natured teasing, but her mother's mouth just tightens, thin and white-lipped. She draws a deep breath and exhales it, slow and steady.

"Your grandfather has died," she says, voice low and hoarse but steady. She sounds remote, and Lin doesn't know what to say, because she's pretty sure that her immediate internal response of _what grandfather?_ is a bad one.

*

"We didn't part on good terms," her mother explains over tea later.

"When?" Lin asks, brow furrowing. "Did you last see him, I mean?"

"Right after you were born. But I meant before then. When I left with Aang."

She looks tired, more tired than Lin has ever seen her look before, sat there and drinking tea like she doesn't even know it's in her hands. There's nothing to say to that, so Lin just drinks with her and stays silent.

"She wants us at the funeral."

Lin nods. She wonders what her grandmother will be like, and whether it will be any indication as to what kind of woman her mother left behind. The mourning period isn't a good one for introductions.

"We're leaving in two days," Toph says, seeming to come to herself all of a sudden, in one abrupt tightening of muscles. She swallows the rest of her tea at once and stands up, stance bunched and defensive. Lin automatically sits a little straighter herself. "It's a pretty long journey, so get ready."

*

It's not such a long journey in itself, really, but Toph wants to walk and Lin's only young. She can't stride ahead like her mother can. Not that she minds. The weather stays mild and Lin enjoys it, even when her legs start to ache. Her mother tells her things that she'll need to know for the funeral, manners and rules that she relays with as much distaste as she can muster. It sounds like an entirely different world than the one Lin knows, the one she found at her mother's feet in an already rusty city.

"I can't believe you know all this stuff," she says on the eve of their arrival. Toph's answering grin is crooked.

"Sometimes, kid, neither can I."

*

Barely two minutes into her introduction Lin's grandmother tries to take her mother's arm, and Lin thinks she's starting to understand a little. Her mother has lines around her eyes and stands a good four inches above the elderly woman, not to mention the muscle and bulk; her life is written all over her. But the way Lin's grandmother looks at her daughter, it puts Lin in mind of someone handling a particularly fine piece of china. Liable to break and chip, only fit for display and perhaps a little dusting.

Toph brushes the hand away wearily, seemingly automatically, and begins to walk on ahead. 

Lin's grandmother avoids Lin's eyes as she follows, and Lin in turn resists the urge to bury her head in her hands. _Wonderful start._

*

"They didn't let me bend, you know," her mother says to Lin later, in her room. A room that is bigger than half the house they have in Republic City, it seems to Lin; it hasn't quite sunk in yet that the name Beifong _does_ mean more than just Toph, War Hero, Toph, Metalbender, Toph, Chief of Police. It means money. It means a house that gets handed down, gaining more opulence each time. "At least," Toph amends, shrugging, "not real bending. Baby stuff."

Her mother's history seems to be coming in starts and spurts. _They didn't let me bend. I was kept inside. I ran away with Aang, but they sent people to bring me back._ She'd known the last story, but not the part about her grandfather.

"I can't imagine you not bending," she says, and Lin can't; it seems to twist the world out of shape.

"Well, I _did_ obviously, I snuck out. I wasn't joking about Earth Rumble, kid."

Lin thinks about what kind of woman her grandmother must see when she looks at Toph if she doesn't see the greatest earthbender anyone seems to be able to name. She can't wrap her head around it.

*

"I can't think why Toph didn't introduce us sooner," her grandmother says, brittle and quiet.

Lin dislikes lying, so she keeps quiet out of some awareness of manners and the knowledge that getting thrown out the day before a funeral is inadvisable. She's never been known for her tact.

"My husband would have liked to meet you, as well," she continues; Lin can see her holding back tears. "I know he and Toph... had their differences, and that he never precisely- approved." The word lingers in the air. Lin wonders what the patriarch of the richest family in the Earth Kingdom might have said about his bastard granddaughter. "But family is family."

Lin thinks about the bitterness in her mother's voice, the conflict, the silences. She wonders if that's such a good thing. This house feels dry and dusty, even when it's gleaming with wealth; Lin's mother walks around it like it's a tomb.

"Perhaps she'll come by more often," her grandmother says, sounding hopeful.

"You could come to Republic City," she says. "I think Toph would like that." _More, anyway._

"I..." her grandmother seems at a loss for words. "Perhaps."

*

Lin counts down the hours until they leave. The whole house feels like a prison, the overbearing rooms, the stairs, _everything_ weighing down on her. She wants the open skies on the walk back, the road under her bare feet, and most of all she wants home. A city that she can feel extending in every direction; their small, open house with her mother coming and going at all hours, every window thrown wide.

When the time finally comes, she watches her mother bend to accept a hug from her grandmother, thin, soft arms wrapping around tanned sinew. Lin steps forward and accepts one as well, awkward. Her limbs feel too clumsy for this woman's embrace.

"Lin's right," Toph says, sounding as assertive as Lin has ever heard, "you should come see the sights in Republic City some time." Lin can't tell if she means it or not; she hasn't got her mother's talent for that.

"I love you, Toph," her grandmother replies. "Thank you for coming."

They set out again. Toph turns her face upwards towards the sun, warming her face, and Lin watches the tension roll away. "She won't come," Toph says, certain.

"We'll see," Lin says.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from My Medea by Vienna Teng.


End file.
